As many of you who follow this blog know — I always start my holiday shopping in August. And I remind everyone to do the same because it just makes us less stressed once the actual holidays come around.

However, I have a confession to make – I have not bought one single gift yet! Not one!

We’re closing in on the week before Thanksgiving and I’m sort of in a panic. I think that the reason this is happening is because I’m a little bit preoccupied with the excitement of my book Listful Thinking coming out in January and I’m putting together my VIP Launch Team (which I’m still accepting applications for until November 24) and I just have let my usual plan for getting stuff done slip through the cracks.

I need some help and so of course I turned to a list. This list is meant to help me and you make holiday shopping less stressful this year. I’d like to get it done and checked off my to do list as quickly as possible.

So here’s some ideas:

1. Get Someone Else to Do It! I’m a huge fan of outsourcing and so there must be somebody somewhere who would love to spend their spare time picking out gifts! If you already have an Amazon list in mind you can use Fancy Hands and get someone to order it all for you. Or you can use a courier service like Zipments to have someone pick your presents up from the store. This way you can still have input in what to get your husband for Christmas, but just get someone else to actually pick it up.

2. Set Aside Time: It’s always tough to find time to do anything but once you segment your day up into chunks it’s much easier to manage. So set aside actual time to do your holiday shopping. I’m most productive in the morning so I’m going to set aside just 20 minutes a day this week to explore what gifts I’m going to get for everyone.

3. Get Some Inspiration: I get it, you don’t want to just give any old gift. You want something unique that the recipient will love and actually use. I recommend creating a couple of pinboards to help you brainstorm ideas. Here are some of my pinboards for inspriation:

Remember to set a budget for each person. That will also help to target your shopping too.

4. Just Do It: One of the problems I have with holiday shopping is overthinking. Or I get analysis paralysis over finding the best deal or scanning through every single Lightning Deal on Amazon.com. But now that we’ve established that I’m in full-on panic mode over not getting started — I need to get over myself. It’s just not worth it and in the end this is supposed to be fun!

5. Set a Deadline : If your going to get your shopping done in time you need to be systematic about it. Set achievable deadlines, like buying 4 gifts each week. Make a note of these deadlines and stick to them. If you follow your plan you should be able to relax sip on some eggnog and delight your friends and family with their thoughtful gifts.

How are you managing with your holiday shopping?

Listful Thinking is now ready for pre-order. If buying the book is on your to-do list, pre-ordering is a great help to me. In the publishing world, pre-orders set the tone for a book and really create buzz with booksellers, media, publishers and book lovers everywhere. Check “buy Listful Thinking” off your list today!